C
Church_Militant
Guest
This is an intentional flip side question asked by one of our n-C members who can’t understand how the Catholic Church supposedly “corrupt” leaders can teach infallible doctrine.
My question is how can any non-Catholic even attempt to open their mouth on this issue since their own clergy are statistically every bit as full of human frailties as our own, and worse still…How can any rational person be expected to believe that what Protestant/n-C churches teach is true when they reject the historic writings of the ECF and of all those from the 1500 years prior to “the reformation”
How can anyone believe that they guys on TV or in n-C pulpits are correct in their doctrines when they don’t even agree among themselves!
Oh they talk about “core doctrines” but the fact is that if ya get right down to it…it’s ALL core, since people’s souls hang in the balance.
If their gospel is so powerful and true, then why do they feel the need to even mention anyone else’s teachings from their pulpits. (Catholic priests almost never do! We teach what WE believe). Yet there are a great many churches where the sermon is not about the good news, but about how some other church is wrong as opposed to what that particular church supposedly believes. (I know this from sitting in those services myself).
As for those who don’t like being told that they don’t understand, or don’t really know what they are talking about when they talk about “what you Catholics believe”, the fact is that it’s the truth. I was a cradle Catholic for 17 years and because I never paid much attention, I didn’t know and understand what the church really taught, which led me to fall away for twice that long before I got caught up in an anti-Catholic attack that I KNEW was wrong and when I spoke up I was put down for it. That got me looking into the truth and it was because of my objective search for the truth that I discovered that the Catholic Church does indeed teach the fullness of truth of Christianity and that I had been misled and decieved.
I came home, but from now on I measure every word that I hear from n-Cs against the Word of God and the historic teachings of the early church. So far I have found very little n-C teaching that lines up with the early church and furthermore, a great many of the so-called “reformed” churches don’t even agree with the original reformer’s teachings…Here’s two cases in point:
My thanks to San Juan Catholic Seminars for publishing this in their Beginning Apologetics # 5 booklet.
The three “pillars of the reformation”, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, all believed that Mary was the mother of God.
Mother of God
Martin Luther: “In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such good things were given her that no one can grasp them… Not only was Mary the mother of Him who is born [in Bethlehem], but of Him who, before the world, was eternally born of the Father, from a Mother in time and at the same time man and God.” (The Works of Luther, English translation by Pelikan, Concordia, St. Louis, Vol. 7, page 572)
John Calvin: “It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of His Son, granted her the highest honor…Elizabeth calls Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God.” (Calvini Opera, Corpus reformatorum, Braunschweig-Berlin, 1863-1900, Vol. 45, page 348 and 335.)
Ulrich Zwingli: “It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God.” ( Zwingli Opera, Corpus reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, in Evang. Luc., Op. Comp., Vol.
6, I, page 639.)
My question is how can any non-Catholic even attempt to open their mouth on this issue since their own clergy are statistically every bit as full of human frailties as our own, and worse still…How can any rational person be expected to believe that what Protestant/n-C churches teach is true when they reject the historic writings of the ECF and of all those from the 1500 years prior to “the reformation”
How can anyone believe that they guys on TV or in n-C pulpits are correct in their doctrines when they don’t even agree among themselves!
Oh they talk about “core doctrines” but the fact is that if ya get right down to it…it’s ALL core, since people’s souls hang in the balance.
If their gospel is so powerful and true, then why do they feel the need to even mention anyone else’s teachings from their pulpits. (Catholic priests almost never do! We teach what WE believe). Yet there are a great many churches where the sermon is not about the good news, but about how some other church is wrong as opposed to what that particular church supposedly believes. (I know this from sitting in those services myself).
As for those who don’t like being told that they don’t understand, or don’t really know what they are talking about when they talk about “what you Catholics believe”, the fact is that it’s the truth. I was a cradle Catholic for 17 years and because I never paid much attention, I didn’t know and understand what the church really taught, which led me to fall away for twice that long before I got caught up in an anti-Catholic attack that I KNEW was wrong and when I spoke up I was put down for it. That got me looking into the truth and it was because of my objective search for the truth that I discovered that the Catholic Church does indeed teach the fullness of truth of Christianity and that I had been misled and decieved.
I came home, but from now on I measure every word that I hear from n-Cs against the Word of God and the historic teachings of the early church. So far I have found very little n-C teaching that lines up with the early church and furthermore, a great many of the so-called “reformed” churches don’t even agree with the original reformer’s teachings…Here’s two cases in point:
My thanks to San Juan Catholic Seminars for publishing this in their Beginning Apologetics # 5 booklet.
The three “pillars of the reformation”, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, all believed that Mary was the mother of God.
Mother of God
Martin Luther: “In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such good things were given her that no one can grasp them… Not only was Mary the mother of Him who is born [in Bethlehem], but of Him who, before the world, was eternally born of the Father, from a Mother in time and at the same time man and God.” (The Works of Luther, English translation by Pelikan, Concordia, St. Louis, Vol. 7, page 572)
John Calvin: “It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of His Son, granted her the highest honor…Elizabeth calls Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God.” (Calvini Opera, Corpus reformatorum, Braunschweig-Berlin, 1863-1900, Vol. 45, page 348 and 335.)
Ulrich Zwingli: “It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God.” ( Zwingli Opera, Corpus reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, in Evang. Luc., Op. Comp., Vol.
6, I, page 639.)
